Saturday, 2 March 2013

Well finally it is looking as though Spring temperatures might arrive this week, so until I can get out and get on with some gardening, here's some birds who have been visiting the garden this winter ~

Long-tailed Tits ( Aegithalos caudatus) To encourage long-tailed tits try planting for an insect and butterfly/moth rich habitat. Plenty of roses, honeysuckle, willow and herbs. They like high food sources and so plenty of good scrubby cover and trees.

Wren (Troglodytes troglodytes)

Love the Latin name of this little bird, which means a reclusive, cave dweller. They are insect and spider eaters so low ground cover perennials to establish a good hiding and foraging habitat and nesting boxes/old teapots hidden in ivy clad walls are an incentive to stay in the garden.

Blue Tit (Parus caeruleus)

To encourage blue tits try shrubs and trees for berries, insects and spiders like ivy and buddleja. They love high energy bird food but, like the long-tailed tits, it needs to be high and out of the way of predators.

Thrush (Turdus philomelos)

These shy birds love snails. Slugs and snails and insects. And berries. But mainly snails, which is probably not what any gardener wants to hear. You don't need to encourage slugs and snails but just stop killing them. As organic pest controls go, thrushes and blackbirds have the added benefit of a beautiful song.

Green Woodpecker (Picus viridus)

This is a real specialist feeder. They love ground feeding on ants and prefer woodland or forest nearby to your garden and grassy spaces with established ant colonies to dig into. My tip to keep ants out of the house and in the garden for the woodpeckers is to place a small container (I use an old jam jar) with some jam in it near the path they use to get into the house once they have woken up in Spring . Make sure it is secured and not a danger to you or your pets/children/wildlife. The ants will prefer it to the long trek into the house and just keep it topped up every now and then with a bit of jam.

Organic gardening, less tidy gardening, more tolerance of weeds and seedheads and ground cover plants as well as mulches. Longer lawns, extended flowering season from annuals and herbs, single flowering plants as well more exotic double blooms, berries and native tree species. All these things help to make a rich habitat for birds and make overwintering in our garden easier for them.

Wednesday, 27 February 2013

Rain
lashes the glass in wind driven waves as Sam nurses a mug of hot,
sweet tea to his chest. Lyme Bay stretches out before him, a wild and
seething cauldron as the storm races in, clouds piling up over the
slumped cliffs to batter the conservatory of his bungalow with an
onslaught of hail. As the night falls Sam can see several dark hulks
moving closer into the bay, ships looking for shelter from the storm,
their thin lights stuttering through the spray. He sips his tea and
wonders what to do, until the storm dies down there is little chance
of sleep. The large chalkboard behind him is wiped clean, no ongoing
cases at the moment but the usual stack of files on the wicker
armchair is weighted down with a worn ammonite. Sam reaches down and
runs a finger over the ridges of the fossil. But work didn't appeal
tonight. It was a night for watching the sea. Spring storms were
always the best and, as a long blade of lightning slices the sky
open, Sam settles into a nearby armchair and watches the show unfold
across the bay.

Detective
Inspector Anne Talanted impatiently scrolls through her numbers on
her phone and taps on Sam Hansome's home number, perhaps he was
there. As she strides towards her car she blips the key and mutters
under her breath, 'Come on, Sam hurry up and answer. I really haven't
got all day on this one.'

Sam
wakes with a start. In the distance he can hear ringing. For a moment
or two his eyes are dazzled by the bright sunlight pouring through
the conservatory windows. He moves and groans, he must have fallen
asleep on the chair, again. He gingerly stretches and rubs his neck,
feeling his vertebrae crack as he straightens. By the time he
reaches the land line in the kitchen, Anne has gone from impatient to
angry. 'What the hell are you doing? I've been ringing for ages,
what's the point of you having a work mobile if you don't keep it
turned on!'

'Morning
Anne...'

'Hardly
bloody morning any more! I'm coming to pick you up en route to the
site, I'll be about half an hour, you better be ready... and bring
boots.'

'Nice
to speak to you too!' Sam replies to the cut connection. Something
had her riled. He glances at the clock, 11.30 am. She was right, it
was barely still morning, he had better get a move on.

Twenty
minutes later Sam steps out into the brilliant clear blue of a crisp
February day. The bay is mill pond calm after the storm and high, thin
clouds stretch tight across the sky. The ships are gone and there is
a fresh, sparkly feel to the day. He watches as Anne pulls her car
into the driveway and beckons for him to get in. He opens the rear
door of the 4x4 and chucks his boots onto the floor and as he climbs
into the passenger seat, she pulls away in a skid of gravel and mud.

'There's
been a washout. Up at the new bypass cutting. It's holding up the
excavation and we've been asked to come and see if we can help.'

'A
wash out? You mean up at Bycombe Down? I hadn't realised the bypass
was going ahead yet. Wasn't there one of those protest camps up
there?' Sam struggles to get his seat belt secured as an indicator on
the dash pings at his ineptitude.

'You
should try watching the local news Sam, it might help with the job!
Well, to bring you up to speed. The bypass got the go ahead six
months ago but it took several weeks for the bailiffs to clear out
the protesters, then just before the diggers moved in a local
historian found some Viking coins with a metal detector and a full
scale archaeological dig has been going on ever since. Did you not
hear about the big pit full of Viking treasure they found up there?'

Sam
stares out the window at the rapidly passing hedgerows. The story
rang a bell, somewhere, in the back of his mind.

Anne
continues, her irritation beginning to subside as she starts to
rationalise events in her mind, 'Last night, during the storm a large
section of previously unexcavated chalk was washed out to reveal a
bigger pit.'

'I'm
guessing not more treasure?'

'No,
lots of dead Vikings, one of them wearing Levi 501's and a black
bomber jacket.'

'A
protester?'

'No,
too old for that. The local police contacted me this morning, the
coroner thinks it's a body from about thirty years ago. No obvious
signs of foul play. Doesn't match any of the missing persons on file.
They want to offload it onto us as the site is so sensitive, before
the media whip it up into something big and bring out all the
protesters again.'

A
little while later Sam and Anne are picking their way through the
bulldozed piles of chalk and police cordons to where the new pit has
opened up. A hundred feet away is a huddle of people round a snack
van, drinking mugs of coffee and watching them. A policeman greets
them, 'Those are the archaeologists, most are students from
Bournemouth University, some are local volunteers. The coroner has
released the body but I guess you'll want to see it in situ and
before we send it over to your labs. Watch your step, the ground is
very unstable after all that rain.'

As
Anne discusses arrangements and paperwork with the police officer,
Sam peers into the deep, ragged pit in front of them. On one side a
huge uprooted tree has dragged away the topsoil, leaving a crater
like hole. There are half a dozen skeletons just emerging from the
raw chalk along with another body, this one fully clothed and almost
mummified. Sam is suddenly aware someone is standing at his elbow. It
is one of the archaeologists, coffee mug steaming in the cold air.
'Yes, 1980's I'd say, judging from the clothes. Poor sod. Well
preserved in the chalk though, it's the high lime content, stops
bacteria. Though how he got in that burial pit I don't know. This was
pristine woodland when we arrived. We had only got as far as mapping
this part of the site when that storm stopped us yesterday...'

'And
you are?' Sam asks, wondering if he should know who this person was
talking to him.

'Peter
Baynette, Professor of Archaeology, I head up the unit working out
here. Very unfortunate, if this turns into a murder investigation it
could set us back months. We think the Viking remains are part of a
raiding party working along the coast. There are some settlements
farther up the valley that may have been their intended targets...'

'Fascintating
and you say there was no disturbance before you started digging?'

'No,
nothing obvious. But the rain must have got in somehow, maybe a chalk
denehole nearby, or even earlier excavations for mining flint, washed
it all out before we had a chance to...' But the Professor is cut
short by the return of Anne and the policeman.

'I'm
afraid you'll have to move back with other archaeologists, Sir. We
need to recover the body now.' Anne smiles at Sam as the professor
moves away. 'I'm going to get all their archaeological data sent
through to us but it sounds like they were only just starting on this
section. Did he have anything of interest to say.'

'Maybe,
look Anne, I'm going to have a scout around and get some photos of
the place. I think the archaeology is not connected to the body. The
professor mentioned deneholes, maybe our body fell down one and it
somehow connected to this burial pit or maybe someone just stumbled
on a convenient hole to dump the body in, thirty odd years ago.'

'OK,
but watch your step. They think the whole site is likely to collapse
again.'

On
the journey back to the FSS Sam and Anne lapse into a silence,
eventually broken by Anne.

'Look,
I'm sorry about being so bad-tempered this morning...'

Sam
waits to hear the end of the sentence sensing there is more to
follow.

'It's
just... well. We've had a lot of bodies that are already dead and
buried recently and I'd quite like it if we had a fighting chance of
finding someone alive. You know what I mean?' Sam nods, knowing
exactly the feeling of frustration and disappointment accompanying
each new body. 'No hope of a happy ending for them.'

'Maybe
not a happy ending but how about a bit of justice and a decent
burial?' Sam asks, searching for a reason to give her. Anne sighs,
'That'll have to do I guess.'